


Mizumono Revisited

by threewick



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: But Will Has Moments of Agency, F/M, First Time, Hannibal Enjoys Will Being Well Fed, Hannibal Is The Boss, He Obvs Chooses The Hannibal Option, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Multi, Murder, Reimagining of S2 Finale With Way More Fucking, Season/Series 02, The Stag Man Is There, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Vague Incest Themes, Will Enjoys Fine Dining, Will Has A Moral Dilemma, Will's Sexy State of Mental Fragility, no actual cannibalism, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 02:37:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15014825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewick/pseuds/threewick
Summary: Will must make amends for his transgressions in getting into bed with the FBI. Hannibal orchestrates it the best way he knows how - by ensuring Will gets into bed with Abigail... and himself.This is a reimagining of the S2 finale where Will, Hannibal, and Abigail all show each other how much they love each other. Also, there's murder.





	Mizumono Revisited

_ Maryland State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. _

_ Will Graham has been taken into custody after being found at the murder scene of Abigail Hobbs, where he and another FBI agent were found critically injured. _

_ Jack Crawford is still recovering and non-communicative; Dr. Alana Bloom never showed up that night. _

_ Dr. Hannibal Lecter has disappeared. _

* * *

“This will all be much easier if you participate, Mr.Graham.”

There is a draft in the room. It is cold, but only near Will’s left shin; he thinks maybe the cooling is coming up from the floor but he can’t see a grate anywhere. The handcuffs are cold against his wrists to match the draft. When he shifts in his chair, the chain tying him to the table hisses against its metal loop. 

He does his best to shift in the chair as little as possible.

Dr. Chilton clears his throat. He does that when he’s impatient - little  _ hegh _ noises, too prim to be of any use. He just wants Will’s attention. He always wants Will’s attention. Will is staring right at him - he doesn’t know how much more attention he can give him, but he has a feeling it still wouldn’t be enough.

“Are you understanding me?” Chilton pushes, his old Virginia accent adding a faint ‘y’ to the long A. 

A muscle in Will’s jaw jumps.

“Yes,” is all he says, the word clipped and cold. Like the draft - like the handcuffs. Like the pale of his eyes.

“Excellent,” Chilton says, meaning it. Will stares at him. He imagines killing him. He wonders how Hannibal would do it. He thinks of Hannibal’s elegant fingers around Chilton’s throat.

“Now, Mr. Graham, I want to talk about relationships.  _ Your _ relationships, more specifically.”

He pauses again, regarding Will expectantly. Will stares back; Chilton, again, hasn’t asked a question. Will shifts in his seat. 

_ Shhh _ whispers the chain. 

_ Hegh _ says Chilton’s throat.

Will knows that Chilton wants to ask about Hannibal. He wants to dissect Will’s involvement, wants to peel away Will’s ‘hysteria.’ He wants to write a journal on Will’s disorders, on his obsession with his former psychiatrist. He wants to ask if it was romantic, to know their closeness, to steal a shard of it for himself. He wants to profit off of the ‘sickness’ that had led to Will’s break, and then he will leave Will to languish, locked away behind bars in an insane asylum for murderers. Again.

But, for the first time, Chilton surprises him.

“Tell me about Abigail Hobbs.”

The brief flicker of emotion across Will’s face betrays his surprise. Chilton sees it; Will can tell by the sudden sharpness of his smirk, the satisfaction as he jots something down in a smug hand. He knows he has found a point of weakness.

Will convulsively reaches up to remove his glasses, but the cold bracelet of his cuffs digs into the bone of his wrist and the chain admonishes him in a hiss.

“I don’t want to talk about Abigail Hobbs,” he says, overenunciating like he always does when he’s distressed. The words come out thin and brittle. Chilton’s smile is cheshire.

“I’m afraid that’s not an option, Mr. Graham. It’s important for your rehabilitation-”

Will makes a noise of derision low in his throat, skepticism flashing like a blade in his gaze. Chilton continues on as if he hadn’t heard it, his voice a little louder.

“- for your rebahibiliation that you address your ghosts head-on. I need to know, Will - what was the extent of your relationship with Abigail Hobbs? What made you kill her?”

“I didn’t kill her,” Will answers automatically, his voice flat but not without emotion.

“Did you hate her, for what she did to those girls? Was it revenge?” presses Chilton, unfazed by Will’s tightly coiled anger.

“No.”

“Did it feel like justice, for her to die?”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Tell me about your interest in Abigail Hobbs. Was it born purely out of guilt? Over killing her father?”

A fraction of a beat in pause. The muscle in Will’s cheek jumps. Memories threaten at the edges of his vision like dark clouds. He can smell the blood from the Hobbs’ kitchen; he can hear the damning  _ See? _ of Garrett Jacob Hobbs. He sees Abigail’s last moments, blood pouring from her throat. Again.

“No,” he grits out, staring at Chilton without seeing him.

“Was it perhaps out of love?”

More memories crowd in, flickering and too many - some false, some real. Abigail fly-fishing in Hunter boots. Abigail with her face upturned in a sun-soaked greenhouse. Abigail’s scarf, the freckles across her knuckles. Abigail, missing, maybe dead, maybe not. Abigail, very dead, her throat a pulpy mess, his fingers pressed into it.

Will closes his eyes tightly, feels his glasses slip lower down his nose. 

“Yes.”

He had loved her. He  _ does _ love her. It had been wrong of him to care, but he had meant it. He had wanted to save her.

“Mr. Graham. Was your relationship with Abigail Hobbs ever… sexual?”

The truth stretches like a rubber band as Will opens his eyes again to Chilton, and this time the answer is immediate:

“No.”

The lie rolls off of his tongue effortlessly, even as Chilton eyes him skeptically. He makes a note in his pad and glances back up at Will, shrewd.

“What  _ do _ you remember of Abigail Hobbs?”

And the memories overwhelm him. 

He sinks beneath them as though they are a dark red tide.

 

* * *

She steps into being like a vision from a dream: a trembling, terrified hallucination. But her edges are too solid; her tears are too bright. She must be real. Will can barely believe it, but she must be real. He stares at her, his heart so high in his throat that he can taste its thudding beats. The gun in his hand feels incongruous to the sudden purity of this moment.

He says her name like a prayer: “Abigail.”

Tears smear across her freckles. When she speaks, her voice is like a balm, mingling with the rainwater on his skin and in his hair to soothe the feverish fire in his veins.

“I didn’t know what else to do, so - I just did what he told me.”

Will’s hand presses harder against the grip of the gun. The cold metal arches its back against his palm and he clenches his jaw. She is so lovely, even in this afterlife - an afterlife given to her by their shared god, their only other.

“Where is he,” Will asks, his voice steadier than he had expected. Abigail’s wide blue gaze slides just over his shoulder, and Will suddenly feels his presence - silent, lethal. Waiting. He turns slowly, the gun lowered as he finds Hannibal Lecter, bloodied and dark-eyed, watching the reunion he’d so painstakingly orchestrated.

“You were supposed to leave,” Will says, and the words come away from him like something crumbling, brittle and desperate as he takes in the sight of Hannibal wearing violence like a raiment. Hannibal’s gaze is impassive, but there is emotion hidden behind the shutters of his gaze - bright and moving, a living thing. Will thinks it might be his past self, trapped in the cage of Hannibal’s eyes.   


“We couldn’t leave without you.” 

Will makes a short, pained noise at this, letting the gun slide limply against his crooked fingers as he drops his arms altogether. Hannibal takes a step nearer to him.

“The teacup that I shattered did come together. A place was made for Abigail in your world - do you understand? That place was made for all of us. Together. I wanted to surprise you. And you, you wanted to surprise me.”

Will shakes his head, unable to speak. He has the horrible feeling that he knows what is coming next. He knows he cannot stop it - that he wouldn’t stop it. The gun in his hand is a tightly coiled thing, fanged and ready, and yet he cannot bring himself to lift it.

“But I have surprised you more, Will. I have given you a gift. A chance at redemption. Would you like to redeem yourself?”

“Please don’t make me,” is all Will can say, the words rasped as he imagines what it is Hannibal will ask for him next - what it is he’ll tell Will to do. What Will knows, despite everything, he  _ will _ do, should Hannibal ask. The thing that would tear him in two; the filicide that will carve itself into his bones, change him forever. Crush him.

“I would never make you do anything, Will. But look at her - look how she wants it. She has told me so herself, that she thinks of it often. How it would feel. How it would change her.”

Hannibal has seized Will’s shoulder in a sure grip, pivoting him until he’s once again staring at Abigail. She looks wretched; she is still standing in place, lower lip trembling as she stares at Hannibal. There is no betrayal - there is no flight instinct. There is only the silent misery present in the glitter of her tears, and Will remembers the gun in his hand.

He could shoot him. He could kill him. He could end all of this - he could destroy the Chesapeake Ripper. Destroy Hannibal Lecter. Destroy his own heart. It would be easy.

“You have to do it, Will. You must consume her - taste her. That is how you will know her.”

Abigail inhales sharply, eyes flickering between the two men. Her two stolen fathers. There is no fear but color rises in her neck, her cheeks, and Will knows he is shaking his head.

“No,” he manages, choked and wild. “No - don’t-”

“You misunderstand me,” Hannibal interrupts, and his words slip quick through the spaces between them like silk through parted fingers.

“You are not going to hurt her, Will. You are going to elevate her. She will open herself to you - to us.  _ La petit mort _ . When she dies this small death, she will be made new - she will be remade, for you. For me.”

Will’s mind is sluggish; the smell of blood is too thick in the air, gumming the mechanics of his brain as he continues to stare at Abigail. She is still silent, still pink. But she has already understood, well before Will - her mouth parts as if she will speak, but Hannibal makes a gentle, soothing sound, shushing her into silence.

“Why?” Will asks, comprehension dawning. His voice is shaky with emotion; there are too many thoughts in his head. It is always too loud. “Why this, of all things - why now?”

Hannibal does not answer, but he places a firm, guiding hand on Will’s shoulder. A moment later, the gun is eased out of Will’s hand - he is being puppeted stupidly as though in a trance, and Hannibal is murmuring soft, quick orders to Abigail with a telling familiarity. Will realizes with a sick lurch that she must have been here the whole time - she is not a new find. She is a hideaway. Hannibal’s ally.

They move through the house, a mismatched trio. Jack is dead somewhere in this house, Will is sure. Hannibal would not be doing this were he still at large. 

The thought registers dimly in his mind, faded into the background as he instead studies the expensive runner spilling down Hannibal’s stairs, the delicate portraits lining his upstairs hallway. They are all moving together in the rainy dark, Abigail still silent, Hannibal still steering Will. Guiding him. Will, still pliant.

They enter a bedroom just as a peal of lightening stabs its blinding fingers through the window, illuminating the scene for one stark, charged moment. Abigail stands at the foot of the bed; Hannibal is at the door; and Will, between them, finally jolted to his senses.

“Abigail,” he begins, his voice low and urgent. He takes a step toward her - Hannibal makes no move to follow. Instead, there is the whispered click of a lock.

She lifts her chin in acknowledgment, meeting Will’s eye with an almost defiant set to her jaw. Her cheeks are still tacky with tears. Her neck is exposed, the mottled scar tissue pearlescent in the strange, flickering rainlight. Everything is blue and shadowed.

“I don’t want to die,” she tells him sharply, her eyes flickering briefly over his shoulder. She seems emboldened by what she sees there - by whatever expression Hannibal is wearing.

“But… I want to know. I want to know what it is, to be… known. Like those people are known - the ones that he… repurposes.”

"Murders, Abigail,” Will corrects her, a definite hint of pleading to the words. “He  _ murders _ them, he  _ eats _ them. This isn’t right - it’s not - not sane.” 

Sense is returning to him in a rush; he thinks of how easily he’d let Hannibal disarm him, of Jack Crawford dead in this house. Of his own foolishness, getting into bed with the FBI, trying to straddle the line. He had been mad to think he could be the one to send away the Ripper.

He turns to him now, expression storming over. He opens his mouth to speak, but Hannibal anticipates his anger - he steps away from the door smoothly, regarding Will with those shrewd, flickering eyes.

“I am not forcing Abigail to do this, Will, nor am I forcing you. I am simply orchestrating something that you both want - that I, too, want to witness. Abigail considers herself yours, and mine. You consider her yours. She and I have spoken quite intimately since she has come to stay with me.”

Will makes a sharp, derisive noise at this choice of words. Hannibal ignores it.

“She desires you, Will. She feels terrible for it, because she has come to see you as a father figure - she feels it is wrong to see you in this way.”

He pauses and looks past Will; a thunderclap underscores the moment. It takes Will a beat to realize that he is waiting for Abigail to clarify, and Will turns despite himself, brow furrowed.

She is staring at Hannibal, defiant yet pink-cheeked. She nods, once. 

“It is my desire that Abigail is comfortable, and has what she wants. And it is also my desire… that I can trust you again.”

The words drop like stones in water, slowing as they sink down into Will’s psyche. The heart of the matter. The cost of his indiscretion. He must tear himself down before the altar Hannibal has constructed, debase himself. He must tarnish the one thing he had secretly held above all else - the one person who was his, whom he had felt sworn to protect.

He must prise himself open for Hannibal’s eyes and then, perhaps, Hannibal would deign to let him know him once more.

Will’s throat works as he swallows, his jaw clenching as he stares directly at Hannibal. Hannibal’s face is a mask - anyone else would see nothing. But Will is not anyone else. He knows Hannibal, knows him intimately. He has lived in Hannibal’s head; Hannibal has lived in his. There are spaces in their memory palaces that overlap, spaces constructed specifically for one another.

Hannibal wants Will on his knees, his face between Abigail’s white thighs, for no other reason than as petulant punishment. A reparation for his sins. A humiliation at Hannibal’s feet.

They stare at one another for a long moment, until another fork of lightning rips the stillness apart.

Will turns to Abigail, his expression softening.

“Is this what you want? You want… me, like this?” he clarifies, his voice gentled as he gestures vaguely at himself. “I’m… Abigail, you can do better than this. You deserve better than this.”

"I don’t want anyone else,” she replies, and this time there is definite defiance making the words streaky and emotional as she takes a half-step towards him. “I only want you - I think about you, all the time.”

Behind him, Hannibal shifts at the words as though they had been flung at him and narrowly missed. As though he, too, understands the pain of such a sentiment - the fruitlessness of desire for such an uncatchable being as Will Graham.

But he’s been caught.

He knows better than to ask for privacy. That’s not what this is - this is Will, digging his fingers through skin and cartilage, cracking his ribs open just so Hannibal can see. This is penance on his knees, a reduction of grandeur, and he swallows again as he allows himself to think about what Abigail’s body might be like. What she might taste like, sound like.

The thoughts prick and sting as they drag down the lining of his body, bleeding him from the inside.

Behind him, Hannibal moves again.

“Undress, Abigail,” he says softly. It is apparent by the flicker of surprise that creases her expression that this is a new request; that Hannibal has never seen her like this before. There is a small relief in that, Will thinks, and he watches for a moment as she brings her delicate hands to her throat, starting to undo the buttons of her blouse. Will glances respectfully away, shifting to give her privacy -

Until Hannibal’s hand comes forward and seizes his chin in a firm, careful grip. He thrusts Will’s gaze straight ahead, onto the girl undressing in a pool of moonlight.

“Look at her, Will,” he commands in a murmur, his other hand now resting at the small of Will’s back. Will can smell the tang of blood at this proximity; the faint, expensive hint of his aftershave. His heart slams against his ribs with a sudden spiked arousal… but not for Abigail.

“Look at what she is giving you. How lovely she is.”

He obeys immediately, watching Abigail discarding her blouse on the floor and moving to the clasp of her jeans. She has already toed off her boots, pulled off her socks; her toes are small and delicate, red polish like drops of blood against her skin. Will can see the jut of her ankle bones, the fragility of her skeleton suggested in them. He swallows again.

Hannibal’s hand at his back is a warm weight.

Abigail is down to only her underwear and she hesitates a moment, staring up at the pair of them. Her hair is a dark spill over her pale skin; the moonlight is dipping her in silver. Will is staring openly now, his interest snagged on the inward cinch of her waist, the soft invitation of her thighs.

“Show him, Abigail,” Hannibal encourages, his voice a purr that ghosts, warm, over the shell of Will’s ear.

Abigail is slow to remove her bra, letting it drop to the floor with her clothes. Her breasts are round and high; her nipples are small, tight and dark against her skin. Will’s right hand twitches. It is wrong of him to feel this way. He knows that it is. He knows that Hannibal can sense his guilt - can likely smell it on him, the agony of a moral dilemma. The betrayal that is his own budding arousal.

She bends to remove her panties, sliding them down her legs and stepping carefully out of them. When she straightens again, Will’s eyes are drawn immediately to the v between her legs - the shape of what he can see of her, the press of her cunt between closed legs.

He exhales slowly, an audible sound in the sepulchral silence. When he lifts his gaze to Abigail, she is staring right at him - no, past him. At Hannibal. A wordless desire for approval. Will knows it well, knows it so well that he feels the phantom need for it, too.

“Exquisite,” Hannibal declares, his hand pressing lightly against Will’s back. “Don’t you think, Will?”

“Yes,” Will breathes, hating himself. 

Hannibal’s hand tightens at the base of his spine.

"On the bed, I think, Abigail. Perhaps sit at the edge - open your legs to him?”

She moves to obey instantly, turning so that the wet moonlight slides its fingers over her lithe body in gentle caresses. It slants across her sharp shoulders, the swell of her backside. The delicate bones of her feet.  She sits on the bed and Will’s body twitches involuntarily; Hannibal feels it. Will is sure he does.

She presses her palms into the mattress, leaning back into them, and hesitates a moment more - but she must see something in Hannibal’s expression that encourages her, because then she’s parting her knees, sliding her thighs apart until Will can see all of her.

He thinks, for a moment, that it’s a trick of the rain on the window panes, but no - she’s glistening with arousal, her body angled so that it’s all he can see, for one brief moment all he knows. The sparse, dark hair hides nothing from him as she waits, her chest flushed with arousal and self-consciousness as Will stares and wants.

He realizes with a sharp jolt that he’s waiting - waiting for Hannibal’s instruction.

“Kneel,” is all Hannibal says, and Will knows it’s meant for him. He knows this is where his penance begins.

He moves to Abigail as though in a trance. He stops at the edge of the bed - between her knees. His eyes are on her face; her eyes are on his. He sinks down to his knees. She keeps her gaze on him for a moment longer, cheeks flushing as he looks, teeth worrying her lower lip - and then she glances up, extends a hand past him. A silent plea.

Hannibal obligingly sits on the bed beside her. He brings a hand to her hair, sifting his fingers gently through it. His expression is soft - indulgent. He looks paternal. Will knows it is purposeful. Everything he does is purposeful.

There is hot shame at the back of Will’s neck, forced to his knees as they sit above him, Abigail’s slick cunt inches from his mouth. Hannibal’s hands are on her even as his, Will’s, are resting on his own thighs. A purposeful reminder of the place he has relegated himself to - by eschewing the place they’d made for him.

“Now?” Hannibal asks her gently, and Abigail’s gaze flickers once more to Will. She inhales shakily and lifts a hand - it’s cautious, the way she moves it to his face, gently slides off his glasses. Will’s mouth twitches; he can smell her arousal. She’s getting wetter. She likes him here, on his knees. He keeps his gaze upturned.

She studies him nervously, eagerly, this gift that has been brought before her. Her hand is cautious still as she sinks it into Will’s hair, carding through his curls. His only reaction to it is to briefly close his eyes, relishing the unexpected touch - the sweetness of it.

Hannibal makes a small, soft noise and when Will opens his eyes again, they seek out Hannibal - Hannibal, who is regarding Will with a new, bright hunger, his lips slightly parted. Will can see the strange, deliberate lay of his top teeth.

He only stares for a moment, because then there is a delicate pressure at his head - Abigail is pulling him in, drawing him close. Arching her back up to meet him. 

Will’s insides feel oiled with arousal, traitorous and damning. He wants to taste her - he wants to fuck her. Worse still, he knows that Hannibal knows. He is sure that Hannibal can read it in the width of his pupils, the harshness of his breath. It’s perverse. He’s perverse. 

Abigail’s hand is small and warm against his skull. There is another phantom hand at his back - not Hannibal’s. Not real. The stag man’s, easing him forward. 

Will complies, obeying the imagined touch. This is his apology. And Hannibal… This is his design.

Will’s mouth opens to her. He bypasses a kiss to instead run his tongue gently along the wet heat of her slit.

The response is immediate - she inhales and tenses around him, her knees pressing to his shoulders. The sound echoes in his skull; he knows this is wrong. It’s incestuous. It’s immoral. But he is drowning in the sounds she’s making, the pull of her hand in his hair.

He dips his tongue into her. She tastes like some mild, heady spice - an undercurrent of something he might find in Hannibal’s kitchen. Something inoffensive and lush and he licks into her again, trying to place it. Trying to taste her more.

“Slow, Will,” Hannibal growls, and Will’s eyes flutter open. Above him, Abigail’s head is thrown back - her eyes are squeezed shut and her breathing is shallow. She is lost to the moment. But Hannibal’s gaze is boring right into him - he looks somehow feral, carnal despite the neatness of his edges. And Will stares back at him, his tongue opening Abigail up, his body run through with the intensity of Hannibal’s eyes. 

Will draws back a fraction, just enough so that Hannibal can see. He finds Abigail’s clit; he runs his tongue over it, slowly, agonizingly slowly. Hannibal’s eyes follow the cushion of it as Will coaxes Abigail’s body deeper into pleasure.

Above him, Abigail cries out again. 

Hannibal looks sharper than Will has ever seen him - angled and lethal, mouth set in a harsh, dipped line. He looks murderous. He looks beautiful.

“Is it good, Abigail?” he murmurs, his eyes never leaving Will’s. Will is still teasing at her clit; her breathing is hitching, ragged. She makes a desperate sound of affirmation; she pulls sharply at Will’s hair. He obediently breaks eye contact with Hannibal, pressing his face between her legs, lapping into her in long, hungry strokes.

Abigail is coming apart above him; he doesn’t think she is close to coming, but she is enjoying it, fucking up into his mouth with a shameless brutality. Will brings his hands up to her thighs, smoothing over them; he’s working into her with his tongue, eating of her, tasting her voraciously from the inside out. His own arousal is sliding down into his pelvis in hot, wet fingers, the taste of Abigail enough to have him stiff, the shame of his actions only making it more exquisite.

It isn’t until a second hand sinks into his hair - a broader, firmer hand - that Will groans, too, the sound lost in Abigail’s body. Hannibal says something soft and soothing above him as he does it, as he pushes Will’s face further against her, almost suffocatingly close. It’s difficult for him to breathe; his entire face is wet with Abigail’s arousal, with his own saliva.

“Will-” she’s gasping, the sounds staccato and peppering the low instructions Hannibal is giving.

“Eat, Will - eat her. That is how you will know - that is how you will come to understand. Not always like this, but to taste… That’s good, that’s very good - are you close, Abigail? Will you give yourself over to him?”

She bucks against Will’s mouth and he tries to breathe - he can’t, between the crush of Hannibal’s palm and the violence of Abigail’s hips. He feels faintly light-headed; his hands squeeze white spots into her thighs; he thinks again, inexplicably, of Jack Crawford’s corpse, somewhere within these walls…

And then Abigail comes into his mouth, her body going very taut and then very loose. She exhales a shuddering noise like a sob and collapses against the bed, away from him.

Will inhales sharply; he is still clinging to her thighs, his arms hooked around them. He stares at her, chest heaving; she is beautiful, more beautiful than before, her legs thrown open and her body on display, her cunt flush from his mouth and her arms askew on the bedcovers. She, too, is breathing hard, her breasts drawing his eye, the swollen part of her lips. The glassy adoration of her gaze.

Hannibal slides his hand from Will’s hair to his neck, and Will turns to stare up at him. His jaw is still slack, his breathing still hoarse. Hannibal looks remarkably composed, save for that same bright hunger from before.

“Very good, Will,” he says, and Will feels a wild surge of daring.

“Kiss me,” he demands, the words abrasive against the pillowy sounds of Abigail’s breathing. Hannibal’s mouth twitches.

“Now - do it now. Kiss me. Taste her - taste what you did.”

Will’s voice is whetted with a savage desire, his eyes flashing as he pushes up on his knees. He expects Hannibal to chide him - to reply with some smooth, even rebuttal, perhaps even a rebuke. Will half-wants him too, is beginning to feel hysterical from the Newton’s cradle of emotions he’d felt tonight. A fight is natural; some bodily violence, more contact, dangerous contact.

Instead of that, Hannibal surges forward and kisses him.

His tongue is deft and full, pushing past Will’s parted lips and rolling against his. Will’s hands are still on Abigail’s thighs; they tighten against the flushed warmth of her skin as Hannibal’s hand comes to his face, cupping his jaw. His thumb presses into the hinge of it to force Will’s mouth open for him. The kiss is suffocating; for the second time in this room he feels as though he can’t breathe, but it’s not because he can’t. It’s because he’s forgotten how, consumed as he is by the sensation of Hannibal’s tongue in his mouth.

When Hannibal draws back, Will is gratified to see that he looks affected, too - feral and uneven, cheeks colored with emotion. With lust.

“Abigail,” Hannibal says coarsely, his eyes never leaving Will’s.

“You wanted more from Will - you wanted to feel him inside you. Do you still?”

Will startles at this, turns to Abigail. She is watching the pair of them with rapt interest - no, adoration. It is splashed plainly across her face, all traces of tears gone.

“Yes,” she answers in a near-whisper, her eyes fixed on Will.

“Abigail -” he begins, near-pleading, but Hannibal interrupts him.

“No, Will. You will give her what she wants. You will show her what she means to you.”

_ What we mean to you _ . The words unsaid. Will hears them anyway, even as Hannibal stands and quickly neatens his hair. It has little effect; he still looks changed, unwound. Made over by Will’s kiss.

“Please,” Abigail adds, the word so soft and sweet that it jars Will out of himself by a fraction. She’s still poured out on the bed, naked and open, and Will’s cock twitches at the sight. He swallows thickly. Her eyes follow his shameful thoughts; she sees the press of his erection against his pants, and her eyes flash with surprised triumph.

It’s Hannibal’s hands that reach for his belt. Will instinctively goes to stop him, but Abigail’s voice is sharp and clear, ringing through the tension -

“Let him. Let - let him do it.”

Will’s body feels twisted up in knots, too many different points of tension to know what they all mean, what they all are. How he feels. He is staring at the freckles littering Abigail’s breasts, the tight buds of her nipples. Hannibal’s hands are easing open his pants, pulling away his shirt.

Will is down to only his underwear, and Hannibal’s fingers hook into the waistband.

He drags his eyes from Abigail’s parted thighs, and finds that Hannibal’s gaze is boring into his. He looks unmasked - it is startling, the sudden nakedness of emotion on his face, of desire.

“Step out of them, Will,” he murmurs softly, only for Will to hear. “I want to see you.”

He eases Will’s final layer down and Will bends, stepping obediently out of it.

He stands naked in front of Hannibal, his cock a damning, stiff line. It is shining at the head; he stares back into Hannibal’s eyes, watching as his self-control finally falters and his gaze drops to drag slowly over Will’s exposed body. 

It is not the usual sterile appraisal that Will has come to associate with Hannibal - it is Hannibal as Will has imagined him, eyes like bright stars, vivid with exaltation and violence. Will’s thoughts are sick, heady whispers:  _ this must be how he looks as he kills; this must be the Chesapeake Ripper.  _

He feels the wild urge to open his body up, to get down on all fours and beg Hannibal to fuck him.

The thought is gone as quickly as it has come but the guilt and shame linger in his eyes - he is sure Hannibal can see them as he glances back up, something silent and heavy passing between them. Abigail waits, wet with silver, on the bed.

“Show her how you love her, Will. Show what you would do for her - what you would give.”

Will’s throat constricts as he swallows his revulsion. He is no father. He is nothing. He had been wrong all along - he was always only Hannibal’s. And now Jack is dead, and Abigail will be lost to him, and he can feel the stag’s false hand constricting his throat. The sensation makes him shiver.

“Why not you?” Will asks, his voice very quiet. It feels like church.

Abigail stirs on the bed, pushing up onto her elbows. Hannibal glances over to her, his expression impassive.

“It is whatever she wants. What do you want, Abigail?”

Her eyes widen at the offer, and her mouth works for a moment in silence. And then -

“I want Will,” she says, the words a near-whisper. “But I know you want him, too.”

The papered-over wounds of the past suddenly split and bleed, gushing with black blood as the atmosphere cracks. It is underscored by another peal of thunder - no lightning, only sound and sensation, Will and Hannibal turning to stare at one another, forced into an airless space by this truth being spoken aloud. 

Will looks fierce and unnerved; Hannibal looks raw and lethal. Will’s chest is rising and falling, deep and damning. Hannibal’s mouth twitches.

“I do,” he acknowledges after a pause, and Will exhales sharply through his nose. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know what he feels. “But I will be here. I will be here with you both. And you should have this, before you go.”

Abigail starts at the final words but Will barely hears them. He is thinking of Hannibal’s mouth in that moment - the tension of his lower lip, the dip of his upper. The first fissures in his careful composure. Lust for Will.

“I can’t do this to her,” he says lowly, before turning to Abigail. “Abigail, I can’t - I can’t do this to you. It’s -”

“You have betrayed us, Will,” Hannibal says, speaking pointedly over Will. His voice is not loud - nothing so undecorous as that - but it is lifted, dangerous. “You will do this. It is what we do for one another. We… make amends.”

Abigail’s eyes are overbright and desperate as she looks at Will, color high in her cheeks.

“Don’t you… want me?” she asks, and Will bites out a noise of flustered anguish. He is naked; she can see how badly he wants her. Or does she know - does she know that it is Hannibal’s hand in his hair, at his back, that had coaxed him to this point?

“Yes, of course I do. You’re - you’re beautiful, Abigail, I -”

“Will,” Hannibal interrupts, soft. Final. Abigail stares at him, imploring. She shifts on the bed; she slides her thighs together. She parts them, inviting. Will’s chest aches.

“Tell me what to do,” he says, barely perceptible. He is looking at Abigail, but they both know he is not speaking to her. Hannibal’s small exhale is audible.

“Go to her,” he commands gently, nodding toward Abigail. Will obeys.

“Your knees astride her hips… Very good. Lower - yes. Touch her breasts, Will - do not kiss her. Look at her.”

Hannibal’s invisible strings move Will’s arms, his legs. He is covering Abigail from the moon; he is staring, breathless, into her face. Full mouth, ripe as a plum; blue eyes, shining with fervor; delicate jaw, sweet chin, soft cheekbones. He skates his palm over her breast - her eyes flutter shut, and she makes a noise that goes straight to Will’s cock.

“Now, Will - now. Do not wait - swiftly.”

Will thoughtlessly obeys, dropping his hips and rolling them smoothly forward, fucking into Abigail in one smooth stroke. But something is wrong; there is give; she convulses and cries out - not with pleasure, but pain, and Will understands in a clap of horror.

“Hannibal -” he breathes, moving to withdraw, to give her relief. But again, he is trapped; there is nowhere for him to go. Hannibal is behind him, both hands firm and flat at his lower back, forcing him down, forcing him  _ in _ . Abigail is writhing beneath him, the pain of it overwhelming whatever pleasure there might be; she is pressing her hands against his chest, pushing him away, but he cannot go. He is trapped, Abigail’s blood once more on his skin, damning him further.

“No, Will,” Hannibal commands, the composure stripped from his words as he digs the heels of his palms into Will’s lower back. He sounds breathless; coarse. He is speaking quickly, the words pointed like swords, like judgment. “No - you will give her this. This is how you know her - Abigail, embrace it. The pain - sink into it, wrap yourself in it. It is a small death, for a new life. Your new life, Abigail - our new life.”

She is listening to him, his words easing her away from the burn of her body’s unmaking. She is beginning to respond to Will, opening to him, her arms sliding up to loop around his neck, her back arching up to meet his thrusts. Tentative - they are both tentative.

And still Hannibal’s hands are at Will’s back, and Will is spurred on by the rough heat of them, the nearness of Hannibal, the exquisite humiliation of Hannibal seeing him like this.

“Do not come in her, Will,” Hannibal warns, the words a murmur for only Will to hear. “Do not leave a trace -”

It is too much. Hannibal’s nearness, Will’s twisting, roiling arousal - Abigail is too wet around him, making small, desperate noises of suffering. She is not enjoying this; it’s wrong. It feels wrong. Hannibal is not his god. He has no god.

Will withdraws from Abigail’s body with a colossal effort, registering the smear of dark blood - black, in the moonlight - on her thigh in some faraway, pained way. She is a virgin no more; Hannibal has seen to it.  _ He  _ has seen to it. 

Instead he twists in Hannibal’s grasp, naked and unmoored, seizing Hannibal’s shirtfront with both hands. Hannibal is caught off guard; Will wrestles him bodily to the bed, a knee at the small of his back, his hands violent and ripping at Hannibal’s belt.   


“No,” Will bites out, furious, changed. He is distantly aware that Hannibal is allowing this; he could not have overpowered him so easily, could not free him of his trousers without Hannibal’s obliging upward tilt of his hips. They are both breathing hard; Abigail has moved up near the headboard, watching the pair of them with a wide-eyed, stricken silence.

Will yanks Hannibal’s fine trousers down, one idea on his mind - a cruel, ugly idea, a debasing of his own. For Hannibal.  _ To _ Hannibal.

He spits onto his fingers and the sound of it, so crude and impersonal, jars something within him.

“... No,” he repeats again, but this time in a tone of quiet, gripped horror. Hannibal is still thrown onto the bed, preternaturally still. A wayward, dark thing. Inhuman. Waiting. He would allow Will to do this, if only to see Will’s progression - to see how far he would go. For his own amusement. To sate his own curiosity. An extension of the game.

Will slides his knee off of Hannibal and steps back, hands trembling. He had wanted to do it - he had wanted it to be forced. He had wanted to fuck Hannibal apart, brutalize him for every cruel thing he had ever done. Make him bleed. Make him hurt. Make him pay, just as Abigail had paid, just as Will had paid.

Hannibal stands carefully, drawing his trousers up loosely to his hips. He does not fasten them; instead he runs careful fingers through his hair, his expression closed up tight. Will cannot read him. He feels the stag man shift in the shadows nearby, aware of what will come next even before Will is.

“On the bed, Will. On your back,” Hannibal says quietly.

Will moves as though in a dream, his limbs cutting through the moonlit space like he’s wading through water. He lies down on the bed, heart sliding into his throat. Behind him, Abigail murmurs something gentle. He closes her eyes as her fingers touch his hair. He thinks of her, and the stream, and fly-fishing. He can remember just how her cunt tastes. The two memories don’t feel incongruous, but he knows they should.

Hannibal has moved away, is rummaging quietly in a drawer; Will knows what he has gone to get even before he feels the cool press of wet fingertips between his cheeks, before Hannibal has lovingly seized one of his thighs and folded it back.

“Abigail,” Hannibal instructs quietly, as though careful not to wake Will from this strange trance he has sunken into. “Come close - rest his head in your lap.”

“No,” Will says, sluggish as he shifts against the sudden press of Hannibal inside of him - a single fingertip, gentle and coaxing. He blinks open his eyes. “No, don’t make her-”

But she’s there, shushing him, making gentle, soothing sounds as she pillows his head on her thighs and drifts her fingertips across his scalp. It is such an intimate gesture that it makes his chest ache; his eyes feel strangely dry with an onslaught of unrecognizable emotion and he squeezes them shut. He can smell the faint hint of blood, the headier scent of sex.

Hannibal has opened him with two fingers now, shallow, and Will arches his back as he eases them further in. Abigail runs a small, warm hand along his cheekbone.

“Look at me, Will,” the stag man murmurs. No - Hannibal. It’s Hannibal speaking, his lilting accent drawing Will into the present, until Will is staring awestruck up at Hannibal. His expression is still smooth and genteel, even as he scissors his fingers within Will’s body - opening him up. Preparing him.

“I’m going to have you. Do you understand? Your consent is very important to me.”

"Yes,” Will breathes, his breath stuttering as Hannibal abuses his body, adds a third finger, makes him feel shimmering and full. He is touching something within Will that makes his ears ache in the best way - a lovely, unfurling pleasure, rolling down into the arches of his feet.

There is the soft sound of fabric, the gentle clinking of Hannibal’s already-undone belt. Will feels hot shame at his momentary lapse of judgment, his need for violence and destruction. Hannibal must sense it; he strokes the pleasure point again as though to show forgiveness, and Will bites out a sharp noise of need.

“Abigail, I want you to pay attention,” Hannibal says gently, and the command is effective: humiliation bursts in a flush across Will’s chest, his neck. He cannot open his eyes. He cannot see Abigail’s lovely freckles, her scarred throat. He cannot see the daughter of his murdered mirror image as he is giving himself over to the Ripper. To Jack’s killer - to Beverly’s. 

“Open your eyes, Will.”

And he does.

Hannibal has undressed without him knowing - his chest is bare, olive-toned and muscled, a secret revealed. His arms are exposed. His throat, his face. His desire for Will. His mask is off - his person suit abandoned. There is only desire, and need, and hunger.

“Please,” is all Will says, the word delivered on a whisper.

Hannibal sinks into him with one punishing, brutal roll of his hips, just as Will had done to Abigail. And just as Abigail had done, Will cries out.

She tightens her hands at his face, holding him closer, soothing him quicker, murmuring platitudes as Hannibal drives into his body. He feels like he’s splitting; he feels like he’s changing. A transformation, a metamorphosis, all underscored by Hannibal’s sharp, staccato breathing, his hands on Will’s chest, arms, throat. A thumb at his windpipe just for a moment - crushing, crushing. Abigail’s hands in his hair. The tang of blood in the air. Will’s arousal. Will’s body. Hannibal’s cock. Hannibal’s body.

When he opens his eyes again Hannibal is above him, split open. His expression is rapturous; he is letting himself be seen - he is pouring himself out, running over Will in hot, viscous waves, drowning them both in the unbridled adoration of his gaze. It is love - it is more than love, denser and truer, more final and more damning. Will feels it in his chest, dangerous and searing like melted tar, and he knows he will die before betraying Hannibal again. He knows he might die tonight; he knows Hannibal might never again let him see the sun.

The thought does not unnerve him. There is nothing else. There is only the moon, and Abigail, and Hannibal unmaking him alongside them both.

Hannibal’s hand rings his cock with a gentle touch and for a moment, there is nothing but pleasure - whited out, overwhelming bliss cresting through him, his own bitten-out cries lost to him in the absolute sensation of his orgasm. Hannibal comes soon after, as though Will has dragged him down into it; as though he’s seized him by the neck and thrown them both off of a craggy precipice, drowning them in foaming baptismal waves.

They reemerge, breathless and panting, into the moonlight, with Abigail still whispering blessings and prayers as she strokes back Will’s sweaty curls.

“See?” she murmurs, eyes bright with pleasure and belonging. “See?”

Will sees. He understands.

“That-” Hannibal breathes, drawing slowly out of Will and searching for his clothes. He is a Michelangelo masterpiece; he is a perfection of the human form. Will cannot stop staring, nor does he ever want to. His body throbs and protests from overuse.

“-is all I have ever wanted for you.”

Will nods, mute and dumb, unable to comprehend the depths of his own emotion. He is in love with them all: Hannibal, Abigail, the stag man in the corner. The moon. The room. The murder hanging over the house like a shroud.

They dress in silence, a strange hush gripping them but not of discomfort. Of joining. They are joined. They are together.

When Hannibal leads them back down to the kitchen, they wordlessly follow. Will takes Abigail’s hand in his. She smiles up at him, changed. Precious. His.

Hannibal stops just inside of the kitchen, and Will regards him expectantly. He feels calm. He feels seen. He releases Abigail’s hand to move further into the room out of habit… and sees a dark, spreading pool of blood. It is still red - fresh.

He remembers Jack.

His heart constricts suddenly in his chest. The atmosphere stretches and stretches; when he turns, he finds Hannibal staring at him. There is still blood smudged beneath his left nostril. He is still wearing his violence like a vestment.

Misgiving twinges low in Will’s gut.

Hannibal lifts a soothing hand to his face; he curves it around his jaw, thumb trailing across Will’s ear. Will stares at him, spellbound. He does not anticipate the pain and it makes it all the worse - it rips across his abdomen, a shocked, breathless sound punching out of his throat as Hannibal draws him in close, drags the pain across, bleeds him like a pig.

Will’s eyes are very round - he had somehow not seen this coming. He can still feel the ache of Hannibal between his legs, still feel the wet of Hannibal’s come within his body. Hannibal is cradling his skull; he is holding him like a lover, speaking to him softly, the blade still deep in Will’s guts.  

Distantly, Abigail gasps.

Will collapses heavily to the floor of the kitchen. His hands are clutching at the wound in his stomach - they are slippery with blood and gore, his eyes stuck, shocked, to Hannibal’s face.

“Fate and circumstance have returned us to this moment. The teacup shatters. I forgive you, Will. Will you forgive me?”

Will understands what is going to happen with a sudden, sickening clarity. He thinks of the blood on Abigail’s thigh - the soft sounds of her beneath Will’s mouth. Desperation bubbles up in Will’s ruined guts, spilling out of his lips in weak, desperate pleas -

“Don’t - no, don’t. Not that. Don’t.”

Hannibal is impassive. He is unmoved. Will’s hands slip in his own viscera, but he extends one shaking arm towards her.

Hannibal’s command is liquor-smooth:

“Abigail. Come to me.”

Hannibal, pulling the strings. They are all marionettes. Will thinks wildly of the love he’d felt for him - the love he still feels. For both of them.

Abigail’s eyes are bright with tears. She takes his hand. Will’s desperation is hoarse and stilted -

“NO NO NO!”

The knife flashes again, the same blade, the same condemnation. A different finality. He is not baptized in the waters with Hannibal; he is baptized in blood, Abigail’s blood, a raw, guttural sound pulling out of his chest as it mists his throat and face. She falls to her knees, clutching at her throat - just within reach. He shifts nearer to her, pain gnashing at his insides as he drags himself across the blood-wet floor. His hands at her throat useless as her life leaves her, courses wetly through his fingers. He cannot save her now. Hannibal has made sure of it. He cannot save anyone.

Will stares as she dies, watches her fade once more against tile and blood, watches her fingers claw at the gaping ruin of her throat as she sucks in wet, useless breaths. The stag man is nearby; Will can feel him, can smell him.

Hannibal drops to a crouch and Will’s eyes rake over his face, wide and shocked. He thinks with a stab of wild, misplaced regret that he had only kissed Hannibal once - had tasted his tongue with Abigail between them, her come in their mouths, a shared victory. He watches Hannibal’s mouth now as he speaks, as he coaxes Will into death - invites him to join her, to rest...

“You can make it all go away. Put your head back. Close your eyes. Wade into the quiet of the stream.”

Will reaches up with a shaking, bloody hand and seizes Hannibal by his clean, white, shirtfront. It is his blood - it is Abigail’s. He is sinking - he is dying. Or perhaps this is not death at all - perhaps it is only a slide into living purgatory, where he will exist until he decays, held fast between Abigail’s soft, white thighs.

Will’s hand goes limp in Hannibal’s shirt. He slumps onto the floor and all he knows is blood - it courses from the stag’s torn open belly, and he closes his eyes as it drags him down under. A dark red tide.

* * *

 

_ What do you remember of Abigail Hobbs? _

“Everything,” Will answers, this time honestly. 

He thinks of her as he often does while entombed here: she is standing in a stream, rubber boots swallowing her legs to the knee. Flannel shirt. Unbound hair. Holding a fishing pole, her throat smooth and white, unblemished. 

He is staring at her wondrously, trying to understand how something so lovely could come from something so fetid. How she had come to be his. How he could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve to know her details… and yet he does. He knows them all.

She turns to him and the sun gilds every auburn strand of her hair, burning it deep and golden. A smile splits her face - her eyes are so blue, so clear. Everything within Will feels settled. There is nothing else. The stag watches from the opposite bank. It is all as it should be.

“Everything,” he repeats, moving to remove his glasses, just as she had in that moonlit bedroom.

_ Shhh _ soothes the chain, staying his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Chaz for being my meticulous editor and indulging my frantic questions in the middle of the night. Thanks to you for reading, please leave a comment and let me know what you think! I’m threewickfic on tumblr <3


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